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The Issues With Incineration |
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By Liz Benneian
Incineration is being touted as the answer to all of our garbage woes but as Ontario municipalities including Halton begin making plans to build such plants serious questions need to be asked about the technology, the costs and the timing.
In Halton, the Region is moving ahead with a business case on building an incinerator at its landfill site on Bronte Road. The plant could process 1.2 million tonnes a year of waste from residences, businesses and industries around the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
Incinerators, like the one being planned for Halton, are now often being sold as sexier sounding energy from waste plants (EFWs), nevertheless, they still have several drawbacks long associated with incineration that cannot be ignored. These include:
1. DANGEROUS WASTES
All types of incineration, no matter what the technology is called, produces dangerous waste in the form of gases and ash. Included in these leftovers are hazardous substances like dioxins and furans. These chemicals are extremely dangerous to human health. As well, the ash produced must be disposed of in specially approved toxic waste dumps. This is not cheap. Attempts have also been made to use diluted ash in construction materials. In Ontario, it is being suggested the ash could be used in building roads and other types of construction projects. In Newcastle, England, ash from an incinerator was used on public pathways. Subsequent sampling of the ash disclosed a massive contamination with dioxins/furans and a major contamination of copper, lead and zinc in the majority of samples. Cadmium contamination was considerable, too. The local people are now being warned to keep children off the pathways and not to grow food near them.
2. VERY EXPENSIVE
Building incinerators is a hugely expensive exercise that will be financed on the backs of Halton’s taxpayers. The greatest beneficiaries will be the industrial/commercial operators who are currently trucking their waste to Michigan landfills. When those landfills close in 2010 they will want someplace close to home to dispose of their garbage. This is part of our Region’s planning scenario for an incinerator but we wonder why the taxpayers of Halton should be responsible for solving industries’ problems. If getting rid of their garbage wasn’t cheap and easy they would be forced to find ways to reduce, reuse and recycle. They might even discover it is profitable for them to do so. For instance, Husky Injection Moulding Systems (with 40 offices operating in 100 countries world wid) put in a waste diversion program that generates $800,000 each year through recycling and now diverts 94% of its waste. Given a will, there’s a way.
3. OPERATING PROBLEMS
Experience worldwide has shown that rather than turning a tidy profit as the governments building them expect, incinerators often become costly white-elephants that end up moth-balled at great expense.
4. WASTING RESOURCES
Incineration involves burning material that could often be reused. A tremendous amount of new resources have to be harvested to replace what is being burned. In a world where we are already over consuming resources, does this make sense?
5. INCREASE IN TRUCK TRAFFIC
The incinerator being planned for Oakville may take up to 25% of the GGH’s garbage. That will mean a tremendous army of trucks on a daily basis traveling through Oakville on the QEW and up and down Bronte road. Is more heavy truck traffic carrying garbage what we want in Oakville?
6. DISCOURAGES SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES
Incineration is a disincentive to “reduce”, the first priority in sustainable waste management. We have also not even begun to tap the potential of reusing or recycling. Despite assurance from Regional staff that “Halton is in the forefront of waste diversion”, our Region allows people to put out six bags of garbage per household per week; there is no Region-wide green-bin program to recycle organics; there has been no massive public education program to promote home composting; local recycling depots and reuse centers have not been set up; and industries have not been encouraged to network (often one industry’s waste is another industry’s essential supply). There has been no lobbying of higher levels of government to legislate a reduction on packaging, a tax plastic bags etc. If an incinerator is allowed to go ahead, these essential sustainable practices will never happen because an incinerator becomes a giant maw that must be fed.
7. CONSUMES ENERGY
If you recycle those things that burn best, like paper and plastic from the waste stream, then what’s left doesn’t burn well and petroleum products must be added to get the garbage to burn. This increases costs and is a new use for energy resources which will become evermore costly and scarce.
8. AIRBORNE POLLUTION
While filters are very useful for trapping larger particles of pollution, incineration also produces nano particles that infiltrate the lungs causing serious illness.
9. INADEQUATE EMISSION STANDARDS
Incinerators here will not be as “clean” as those operating in Europe because Ontario’s air emission standards are appallingly lax compared to European standards. No builders will incur the expense of putting expensive pollution controls and technologies in place that are not required.
10. LITTLE ENERGY GENERATION
Incinerators, including the one contemplated for Oakville, are being sold as a wonderful way to solve two problems at once by getting rid of garbage while producing energy. The fact is that not much energy is actually generated. In Sweden, where 50 percent of their waste is incinerated, only 1 percent of their energy is generated by incinerators. Incinerators are not the solution to our energy woes.
Halton’s landfill is not expected to reach capacity under current conditions until 2023. Now, about 40% of garbage is being diverted from landfill through diversion strategies. If the Region can reach their target of 60% diversion, our landfill is expected to last until 2030. We think the Region should be aiming higher than 60%. We believe as a society we must have a goal of 100% diversion and be pleased if we miss the mark by a bit. In any case, there is no need to rush into building a costly incinerator when we haven’t even begun to tap the other opportunities to reduce, reuse, recycle.
The Region’s current timeframe for its Incinerator Business Case is as follows:
* March 2007 – Business Case Completed
* April 2007 – Business Case presented to Regional Council
* May to October 2007 – Public Consultation
It’s important that citizens are well informed about incineration by the time public consultation begins.
To that end, Oakvillegreen Conservation Association, in partnership with the north Halton environmental group P.O.W.E.R., will be holding a public seminar featuring an incinerator expert professor Dr. Connett from St. Lawrence University in New York State and Rod Muir a waste diversion campaigner from the Sierra Club. Oakvillegreen will send out dates for this event as soon as they are available.
In the meantime, please think critically about what you are hearing and seeing on the benefits of incineration. Do your own research. Be prepared to participate in the public consultation process. If we don’t want to take a costly wrong turn with our waste management strategy, the public will need to be able to separate the garbage from the gold.
The Recycling Council of Ontario
Sierra Club of Canada Ontario Chapter Waste Diversion Campaign
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